North Breaks Cover on Lee Seok Ki Case

Two days after the arrest of a number of officials and widespread searches of property related to the Unified Progressive Party in South Korea, Chosun Central News Agency has broken cover on the case, reporting on the 30th that the South Korean government is attacking the domestic left.

KCNA claimed that the National Intelligence Service and state prosecutors had “embarked once again on the extreme suppression of the Unified Progressive Party, an opposition party in South Korea.”

“They hit Unified Progressive Party lawmakers and officials, as well as East Gyeonggi Alliance members, with charges of conspiracy to launch a rebellion, so started searching their houses and offices” it claimed. “The puppet party claims it has evidence that they had a meeting in Seoul in May and plotted to overthrow the system. They’ve labelled the case an underground revolutionary organization one, and stated that all related persons will be investigated.”

From North Korea’s perspective it is important to report on the story as one in which progressive forces in South Korea are repressed by the conservative South Korean “puppet” rulers, who run South Korea in collusion with the United States.